fishbane

I don't think growing the sport is a good argument for National Duals. To me it's more about choosing a team champion in a more easily understood way. Most wrestlers couldn't tell you the exact scoring. Of the sports that you mentioned UFC, Boxing, and PGA Golf only the last one is contested in a tournament format. The first two have cards with a handful of select bouts that are much closer to duals than tournaments. How much would you estimate Bassett's social media presence has grown the sport? 20%, 10%, 5%, 1%?

I agree with all of this expect the part about national duals not producing a better definition of best team. Their NCAA has the advantage of all teams participating and a lot of matches to rank the teams, but I think there is a large element of randomness and draw dependency in the outcome. If two teams are close in team points I don't feel that confident in saying one team is better than the other. Last year 12.5 team points separated 2nd place Cornell from 8th place Ohio State. How confident would you be that the ranking Cornell>Michigan>Iowa State>Iowa>Arizona State>Virginia Tech>Ohio State is accurate? From a fan perspective having two teams wrestle a dual settles things in a more straightforward and satisfying manner. Take the 1998-1999 season as an example. Iowa won NCAAs with 100.5 team points. Minnesota was 2nd with 98.5. Iowa had three wrestlers in the final with 2 champs (Doug Schwab and T.J. Williams). Their 3rd finalist Lee Fullhart lost to Minnesota's Tim Hartung. What ultimately sealed the championship for Iowa was Stephen Neal beating Minnesota's Brock Lesnar in the final bout of the tournament, but you could just as easily point to T.J. Williams pinning UNC-Greensboro's Melvin Saunders in the first round of the tournament as the difference in team scores. Is Iowa a better team? They lost two duals to Minnesota that season. Once at the National Duals and the other a Big Ten dual in Iowa City. Edit - NWCA National duals were in Iowa City in 1999. MInnestora beat Iowa 2x in duals in their home gym.

The NCAA isn't that interested in wrestling as an institution. The outside entity that is trying to get a piece of the pie is the NWCA the coaches association. It was literally a majority of NCAA wresting coaches that voted for this back in 2012.

I attended the Big Ten tournament last year. There were open seats even in the finals. My group had extra tickets we couldn't give away. Not that many hardcore wrestling fans aren't flying across the country to watch Big Tens like NCAAs. Last year it was in MD a relatively easy trip from State College, PA where PSU sells out every home dual. And the Big Ten tournament is the exception of conference tournaments. The EIWA is set to be less compelling this year than last year with the split of the Ivy League.

Perhaps, but with at large bids and the increasing number of forfeits not only in the consolations but also the finals they may not be laughing a few years from now. Fans would only really miss one tournament. The rest are lightly attended and likely lose money. The Big Ten is the only conference that really needs a tournament. The Big 12 and ACC are small enough that they wrestle all the other teams already. An end of season tournament is superfluous as all these matches should have happened already. Back when the Big 12 only had 5 teams they would wrestle home and away duals to make a conference dual schedule with 8 duals. Why even have an individual tournament? Everyone should have wrestled everyone else 2x already - just use those results to pick the national qualifiers. To round out this proposal teams would wrestle a round robin of conference duals and wrestlers would qualify to NCAAs based on individual standings for each weight from the record in conference duals and an allocation to each conference. At large selections would be made. Participation in a min number of conference duals at the weight would be required. Since regular season duals would be in effect the NCAA qualifier this would incentive wrestlers to wrestle in duals so big matchups would be more likely to actually happen.

Yes the tournament later this year in Tulsa is way too early. On the Basch and the Brain podcast last week they discussed how to make national duals work ahead of the announcement. Willie seemed to think that the split season like the tennis pilot program is the answer. Wrestle a dual season in the first half of the year oct-dec and have national duals in Dec. Then move all the opens, invitationals and various individual tournaments to January and February and keep the individual post season unchanged in March. I don't think this is the answer. It's a pretty radical schedule adjustment and I think it would change the flow of the season too much. Everything kind of builds to March currently. There are a lot of big duals later in the year which leads into conferences and then NCAAs. Teams just don't wrestle tournaments in the second semester. I think this would create a lull in the schedule where the top teams pretty much sit their starters until the post season. Getting teams to wrestle tournaments after CKLV would be trying to convince OSU, ISU, ASU, Missouri, PSU, Michigan, Illinois, Lehigh, Cornell, VT, ect to change what they did this year. Sanderson at PSU was the only consistent hold out of the old formats. From a fan perspective this should happen mid to late February at the end of the season before conferences. If that can't happen then my choice would be to have it two weeks after NCAAs with the top 4 or 8 teams in the NCAA standings qualifying or eliminate the conference tournaments and have it two weeks before NCAAs.

I disagree. Having a National Duals in November makes no sense as Goodale points out. At least not with the current schedule. If this tournament in Tulsa is happening the middle of November how can you even pick the teams to invite? What is that based on? The first competition of the year was Oct. 31st this year. Presumable teams need some notice to make plans and set their schedule. Ideally a national dual meet championship would be the culmination of the season and the final dual of the year. Each team would have a chance to qualify assuming they win all their duals. By January you have some idea of where teams sit and who to invite. An up and coming team would have a chance to do something to get invited. If you are inviting teams in early November then you can't be basing that on any relevant results at all.

They held the Olympics without the top team this year. It worked okay. The thing is that the Olympics is a big event and has been or years. Can this get started or perhaps restart? without the top team? If I recall correctly the thing that sunk the national duals was back in 2011 when Iowa didn't participate. The tournament had bounced around the country, but had been at UNI for 5-6 straight years and wasn't losing money there. Then Iowa didn't attend and I'm sure it lost money. PSU didn't attend either, but Iowa was probably the bigger absence at the time. A series of format changes ensued and the tournament struggled to either break even or attract the top teams. The prize money might attract more top teams, but maybe not PSU. PSU's absence and the timing in November might struggle to grab fans attention. Those things and offering $1M in prize money might make it difficult to sustain.

Lol. Everyone looking out for themselves and no one with the authority to make everyone do anything. I suspect this format change will not fix the problems with the national duals.

PSU was up 20-0 at the break.

I thought Jesuroga retired. He would make 12. Bradley Hill also transferred to Oklahoma. Then the two Ferraris.

If you include the Ferrari bros this makes 11 wrestlers that were in the Iowa room last year that are now on rosters elsewhere.

I think the rule changed in 2019-2020. You use to have to mis most of two seasons to get the 6th year. They almost never give them out to the point that they were rarely even applied for. I think Eric Bradley was denied under the old rules. I think you're right that it now is a routine part of the medical hardship since the rule change. The criteria is participation in no more than 30% of competitions and the injury happens in the first half of the season. The Cornell dual was their 8th competition date of the year and there are 16 on Lehigh's schedule so it was in the first half, but if it happened this week maybe not. I guess the only thing that could really hang it up is if he gets medically cleared to compete before the end of the season, which he might. Finding a doctor to not clear him/having Crookham say things that would prevent the doctor from clearing him is probably trivial. Several wrestlers have received 6th year waivers in recent years Michael Kemerer, Boo Lewallen, Austin Gomez and Anthony Cassar to name a few, but before 2019 there aren't many. I think Noah Surtin is out for the year and would need a 6th year. Nagao if he out for the year would be in the same boat, but since he's not starting even if it weren't guaranteed the decision would be different than Crookham's.

Perhaps, but is wouldn't change the answer much in 2024. PSU had the highest NCAA medalist from the conference at 6 weights. In Iowa's record setting 1983 season they had 9 Big Ten champs and the highest NCAA placement from the conference at 9 weights. If you expand the conference to include all 2024 members then Iowa only had the highest placer at 8 weights. Could one of the 5-champ teams win a dual against the rest of the NCAA?

This question is functionally similar to "How many Big Ten Champs will Penn State have?" Especially since you have multiple wrestlers listed for the Big Ten team at some weights. Last year they had 5 champs, with Starocci not wrestling. Four of them and Starocci return. Still maybe it's more interesting than last year with Gable back, since he is likely to block Kerkvliet from repeating. Probably a very similar team performance. I'll say 5 champs 149-184 possibly a 6th at 197. PSU has more bonus point potential and takes the dual on bonus. Far less dominant than 1981-1986 Iowa when they had at least 7 champs/season and as many as 9 in 1983. Seven champs all but guarantees a dual victory.

Crookham already redshirted during the 2022-2023 season. He wouldn't just need a medical, he'd also need a 6th year waiver. The second part was routinely denied in the past, but are much more common now. The average medical redshirt situation would be a wrestler who has never redshirted in the past that gets injured less than halfway through the season. Logan Stieber's freshman year would be an example. I don't know that you get granted a 6th year waiver in advance though. He might have to wait until his 5th year to get granted the 6th. Even if it now can be granted in advance, I doubt there would be any clarity on that front by March. I'd expect it to some down to how Crookham feels and if he's ready to compete. He'd be weighing the chance of winning this year in whatever state of health he is in vs the chance of being granted a 6th year. In any event, there isn't really any need to make a decision now unless Stanich or someone else pulling a redshirt would be his replacement. In that case you'd want that person in the lineup asap to try and get enough matches to get an AQ for the conference.

Anyone remember the Nebraska-PSU student announcers from years ago? They had no clue what they were watching. So many stallmates and illegal leg trips. Were these recent broadcasts as bad as this? I doubt it. https://youtu.be/7E7TQMFXYHA?si=SCVz5pSve_9cRqK8 https://youtu.be/f8zKqv8drxQ?si=gAeY5pFve82F4mpU

It nearly happened with the Stieners and Hugheses at Iowa and PSU, respectively, in the early 1990s. I think Troy Stiener beat John Hughes in a dual in the 1992 season whilst Russ Hughes redshirted. The next reason Terry Stiener beat Russ Hughes in the dual, but John Hughes redshirted. After that both Stieners graduated.

This topic was discussed on FRL today in the questions segment. It sounded like the consensus was they would not quite be a top 10 team, but would qualify 10 guys. The lineup they considered featured both Nagao and Facundo. Sounds like it was roughly as I've laid out below, though they didn't discuss every weight. They seemed to think Nagao, Facundo, and Ryder could place. The Mirasolas they thought maybe not quite be there and Sealey they thought possibly could AA, but that was solely based on Sanderson's paise. The average 10th place team over the past 25 years had 51.25 team points and 3.11 AAs. The minimum number of team points was 40.5 in 2012. The fewest AAs by a 10 place team was 2 which has happened 3x over that timespan. Every time the 10th place team only had 2 AAs one was a champion. 125 Kurt McHenry 133 Aaron Nagao 141 Cael Nasedo 149 David Evans 157 Joe Sealey 165 Alex Facundo 174 Matt Lee 184 Zack Ryder 197 Connor Mirasola 285 Cole Mirasola https://www.youtube.com/live/hGGuXTmNNL8?si=jKHH0Z4_e29QZQjD&t=4122

Is the last column WrestleStat? I'm only seeing three top 33 wrestlers for Purdue at WrestleStat.

I thought Navy was the closer match and I based it on their dual performance last year. This time last year Navy was undefeated, WS had them ranked #16 and there was a case for them as a top ten dual team. I recall thinking at the time a top ten dual team without a top ten wrestler in the lineup. Wouldn't that be interesting? A team that is greater than the sum of its parts. The case for them to be considered a top ten dual team was pretty straightforward. They had beaten Pittsburgh by a fair margin and Pittsburgh had beaten Ohio State who was ranked #3 by WS at the time. So Navy>Pitt>Ohio State. Navy had also defeated Illinois, so Pitt wasn't their only significant win. They probably had 6 wrestlers in the top 30 at the time. Ultimately it ended up not working out. Navy dropped a series of duals late in the season and David Key finished 8th at NCAAs. So they had a top ten wrestler and weren't a top ten dual team. On the tournament side if you take Navy's 2024 NCAA points (13) and add Parker Keckeisen's 2024 points (26) to it you get very close to UNI's 2024 NCAA point total (39.5). UNI is better this year than last, but Keckeisen may score fewer points this year too. I also think this could be the high water mark for UNI in the WS rankings. The Nebraska win was a great result, but we may look at Nebraska a little differently after Big Ten duals. They made a lot of lineup changes and the rankings still have lingering effects of the wrestlers performance at their old weights. On the other side UNI is likely to take a loss or two in Big 12 duals. It's possible. I think UNI without Keckeisen would probably be pretty close to the average UNI team under Schwab. 8-6 dual record, 1 AA, ranked in the 10-20 range with about 7 NCAA qualifiers. They would have a big win over a top ten team, but also lose to an unranked team. UNI the past 2-4 years would be below that average without him. I was wrong about Schwab at UNI - they had a top ten team in 2014. They were 13-0 with 7 NQ and 3 AAs. WS had them ranked #10 in duals. Their AAs were Colon (3rd), Labor (6th), and Peters (6th). Ryan Loder was also on that team. He had placed at NCAAs the year before. Moore was also seeded 10th at NCAAs. For some reason UNI had their finish at 15th for this year in their media guide so I missed it. It's better than I thought, still if the high mark now is a borderline top ten team and that's a landslide ahead of everyone else that isn't great. In the past multiple top 10 and top 5 finishes by miid tier program were possible. Now PSU might have a second team better than UNI. I get it, but things take time. Turnbull didn't have a top 10-15 team for his first 10 or so years. Things need to line up just right too and it's gotten a little harder to do recently. These recruits he's getting aren't top 10-15 guys. With 80 AA places each year distributed over 4-5 recruiting classes. Only the top 16-20 guys in a class are really projected to make the podium. Recently there have been more guys getting 6th and 7th years of eligibility. A recruit like Titus came along at exactly the wrong time. I think if you look at # of AAs and national champs per recruiting class there will be fewer in the class of 2021 and to a lesser extent subsequent years due to COVID. Conversely the class of 2020 will probably have a peak in AAs and champs that it doesn't really deserve. Things are finally starting to clear out and get back to normal. WVU nearly had a big win over ISU last night. All they needed to win was a healthy Watters to wrestle and beat Painero Johnson. Unfortunately, Watters is injured and out for the year. WVU will do well to equal their 2024 finish without him.

In the past doing the most with less could be Mike DeAnna at Edinboro, Bruce Baumgartner at Edinboro, Tim Flynn at Edinboro, Jack Spates at Cornell, Rob Koll at Cornell, Brian Smith at Missouri, or Kevin Dresser at Virginia Tech. These all produced top ten teams with multiple AAs and solid dual squads. Now a UNI that placed 14th last year with 1 AA is a landslide ahead of everyone else? That's a landslide or two behind what was previously possible. I didn't say nor imply that 2025 UNI would be akin to the 2024 Air Force Academy lineup - all one guy. They are better than that. Your comparison could have been close if Hendrickson had chosen a different branch of the service. UNI is like if you added Parker Keckeisen to the 2024 Navy lineup or maybe 2025 Army. Kolat and Kevin Ward do a good job with their programs but you have Schwab a landslide ahead of them at UNI. That landslide could be named Parker Keckeisen. I also think that you are underestimating the job Tim Flynn has done at WVU. Last year they finished 17th at NCAAs with was their best finish in 20 years. They had 2 AAs which is one more than UNI and the first time they had 2 AAs in a season since Greg Jones graduated. But it's not all about NCAAs. At Big 12s they were just 2.5 points back of Doug Schwab's landslide. When Flynn took over WVU had produced 4AA finishes by two wrestlers (Rader and Moisey) in the previous 13 years. Flynn has 5 AAs in 5 tournaments. He might have even had an NCAA champ had the 2020 tournament not been cancelled. This is Schwab's 15th season in Cedar Falls and he has coached 15AAs to date. Flynn coached 33 in 21 seasons in Edinboro.

It's really an indictment of the times if Schwab takes this by a landslide. All of UNI's AA finishes over the past 5 seasons have been by one wrestler Parker Keckeisen. Schwab's done a good job, but he's had 15 years to build things up and hasn't cracked the top 10 - maybe this will be the year? If Luke Smith gets 3 years out of Ferrari at Bakersfield he's probably ahead. From 3-33 over the past 3 years to possibly top 20? at NCAAs. Smith didn't even have an assistant at the start of the season.

I don't think the roster cap of 30 does anything for competitive balance in wrestling. Since NIL the scholarship limit doesn't do squat, but I have a hard time believing the big programs are paying NIL exceeding the cost of tuition more than 3 deep at each weight. I guess it is theoretically possible for a team to pay 50 guys just to hoard them from competitors, but that isn't really going to happen. The suggestion earlier in the thread that teams could enter multiple wrestlers per weight in the post season would harm competitive balance more than not having a roster limit. You'd see more top teams with 2nd teams that could win duals against the mid tier programs.

Why would you exclude walk-ons? With a scholarship limit of 9.9 it would seam like no teams would satisfy the criteria of 30 scholarship athletes.